Blogger's screw-up spreads false news about Edwards campaign

Shortly before noon today, a blogger screws up - his "reliable" source gets his facts wrong - and half the country is led to believe that John Edwards is suspending if not abandoning his presidential campaign.

Shortly after noon we learn from the Edwards themselves that the campaign will continue uninterrupted.

That's the way online journalism works - or doesn't work - these days.

(Update, Saturday: Right wing of blogosphere has been remarkably sympathetic to Elizabeth and John Edwards, says expert, who may have Rushed to judgment if he didn’t hear Limbaugh.)

Of course, the heartsickening news here is that Elizabeth Edwards, the candidate's wife, is again battling cancer. The family has three children, two of whom are very young, and to imagine their anguish is itself a painful experience.

But exactly how does that anguish get garbled into countless false news reports, many of them on the Web sites of brand-name news organizations?

Blogger Ben Smith, who writes for The Politico, explains what happened:

A single, confident source close to John Edwards told me this morning that Edwards was "suspending his campaign," and I posted it to the blog at 11:06 this morning.

My source, and I, were wrong.

The source, whose anonymity I agreed to respect, spoke of the kind of grim prognosis Elizabeth Edwards herself just described hearing before a second round of tests came back. I trusted the source, somebody I've known for several years, and who has always been reliable.

And with less than an hour before Edwards was to announce, I unwisely wrote the item without getting a second source.

When the campaign pushed back harder than I'd expected, I added that information to the original item, but that doesn't undo the damage.

My apologies to our readers for passing on bad information.

That apology should be extended to all of those readers of all of those publications that rushed to pick up Smith's erroneous item and run with it themselves. Of course, the extensions should come from the organization that did the running, but don't hold your breath. Most simply pasted the correct version of the story over the old untrue report.

A half-hour or so, that's all everybody had to wait to hear the accurate news from John and Elizabeth Edwards. News competition being what it is online, a half-hour proved to be too long.

I'd like to be able to suggest that this will serve as a lesson learned. ... I know better.

(Update 3, Friday: Curious comment from the Edwards camp in that AP story: "There was never any discussion of suspending the campaign," Edwards adviser Jennifer Palmieri said. … How could that be?)

(Update2 , Friday: AP has the screw-up story today and it includes a list of media giants that have issued corrections.)

(Update, Friday: Not that this is any revelation, but Rush Limbaugh is simply a crazy person, a loon, a man for whom reality will forever be but a wisp beyond his grasp. I belabor the obvious this morning because Limbaugh has – no word of a lie – accused the Edwards campaign of intentionally starting the rumor "to jump-start the campaign." Not only is the idea nutty on its face, but it is patently offensive: To accuse John and Elizabeth Edwards of lying to exploit her tragic new battle with cancer is nothing short of immoral. … Oh, and crazy, too.)

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